Enterprise Intelligent Design

It is no secret that more than 90% of all well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution. More than 85% of leadership teams spend less than an hour per month discussing businessstrategy. Most surprising of all, 95% of employees have never read their organization's business strategy. This could be the symptom of a deficiency in organizational communication, planning and cohesiveness. In simple terms, your organization might not be destined for success! However, by implementing a strong strategic framework that comes with Enterprise Intelligent Design, your organization will be set up to succeed right from the start.

The concept of the Enterprise Intelligent Design is based on the idea that organizational success comes from designing and continuously improving the operations and strategies that will meet organizational needs.In order for this business process to be successful, leadership must have buy-in to enforce and ensure everyone has a complete understanding of the organizational, leadership, departmental and individual goals. In order to do that, it is absolutely essential that each and every organizational unit plays a positive and contributing role, as well as supporting the overall operation (either directly or in-directly). In short, everything and everyone must have two important things: an understanding of their role and how it relates to his/her understanding of the organizational goals through all the units in between.

The first step toward designing the organization for success is to clearly define the organizational goals. This information could be viewed as the organization’s Essential Operations Codes and Guidelines, which need to be ingrained into every aspect of the organization (including all the individual operational units). It is critical that the key stakeholders from all units within (and outside) the organization are participating in the process of defining and refining, so everyone has a complete understanding of the Essential Operations Codes and Guidelines via their own participation, and an understanding of how he/she plays a part in every level of corporate goal achievement. Without individual success, the organization as a whole is unsuccessful. Therefore, it is beneficial (indeed imperative) that leaders help each associate achieve individual goals to ensure goals are met everywhere else. This approach also ensures that only those things defined by each unit determine success, rather than political, feel good, egoistic or “business-as-usual” rationale.

An organizationin many aspects is similar to a complex living organism. Despite the fact that it is made from many smaller living components that have different functions, they are all supporting the entire living system. An example of this perspective is how DNA works in living complex mechanism. Each strand of the DNA in any cell contains all the genetic information of the whole system. However, each cell only uses the elements that are appropriate to the operations of the cell within the larger complex system. Similarly, if any portion of the cell makeup fails or is improperly defined, the entire structure collapses.

Another important consideration to the success of the Intelligence Design is the ability to create, communicate, execute and enforce strict governance of the new business process to ensure consistency throughout the organization. Such organizational congruency is an absolute necessity, as each unit is considered a part of the larger system. Failure at any level in the hierarchy can have a devastating effect on the enterprise. If all the organizational units are not striving to achieve the same end goals, the unit becomes disconnected from the organization, interdependent, or just structurally disintegrates. These outcomes could be viewed as organizational equivalent of cancer. The effects would be disastrous (from the inside out) and would be extremely difficult to recover.

Let’s mention a few dimensions of the Intelligent Design. These dimensions are based on the ability to manage a complex business process for each enterprise in today’s global environment. Each process can be divided into two groups. Each categorizes a different level of Intelligent Design development.

Some Micro Dimension examples are:

Organizational Hierarchy

Organizational Components

Strategic Maturity Stages

Some of Macro Dimension examples are:

Operational Environments

Social Responsibilities

As we’ve already stated, an organization can achieve a state of harmony only when there is goal alignment within all of the micro/macro dimensions as well. Achieving such level of cohesiveness is directly related to the level of knowledge, resource, communication, cooperation, authority, and responsiveness to the new policy from every unit.

About the Author:

Dr. Khadem has over 23 years of Aviation, Software Engineering and IT leadership experience with a consistent track record of delivery and driving increased levels of productivity, profits and internal/external customer satisfaction. Recognized as a Business, Technology, IT Strategy Evangelist and Change Agent whom implement and manage complex technical solutions that deliver a strong value and ROI.

Dr. Khadem hold a Ph.D. In Strategy & Information Technology, an MBA in Business Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.